Upcoming Events

Within the houses of six families in the New Haven area, Chinese heirlooms, documents, and objets d’art sit on mantels, adorn walls, and rest in 20th century steamer trunks. They are treasured artifacts of their owners’ stories—tangible heritage that accompanied families as they traversed the Pacific Ocean, culture to culture, generation to generation. Now, whether through affinity for the trans-Pacific spirit of Yale-China’s work or just by chance, these pieces have arrived at the Yale-China Association. We invite you to marvel at them both for what they are and for what they represent.

Precious Driftwood: Stories of China, Migration, and New Haven, Yale-China’s exhibit from November 10, 2014 through July 31, 2015, features the narratives of individuals and their families in the greater New Haven area—some began in China and others began in the United States. This collection of precious objects illuminates the diversity of the Chinese diaspora and the people who worked side-by-side with their overseas peers seeking to create a more multicultural community in a time of world wars and xenophobic demonstrations on both sides of the ocean.

This exhibit is on view from November 10, 2014 through July 31, 2015 at Yale-China Association's Bierwirth Room, 442 Temple Street in New Haven, Connecticut.

Environmental Contributions to Pregnancy Outcome - China Birth Cohort Study
Given the growing evidence that many human diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer, originate in utero, it is essential to understand the environmental risk factors during fetal development that are linked to childhood mortality and morbidity, and adult chronic diseases. To that end, a birth cohort study of 10,542 newborns in the city of Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China was conducted in 2010-2012, followed by an additional cohort of over 8,000 newborns in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China, currently ongoing. The aim of these studies is to investigate the risk of adverse birth outcomes given genetic susceptibility and various environmental exposures. This Fireside Chat will focus on the analysis of ambient air pollution and passive smoking in relation to various adverse birth outcomes. The findings have significant public health implications and are relevant to policy makers who design air pollution policies for China and other high-air-pollution regions.

Yawei Zhang
Dr. Yawei Zhang is an associate professor at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Yale School of Public Health. Having received her initial medical training in China, she came to Yale for her MPH and PhD in epidemiology from the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Zhang completed a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, and then joined the faculty of the Yale School of Public Health in 2005 as an assistant professor. An adjunct professor at the China National Cancer Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Qidong Liver Cancer Research Institute, and Taiyuan Medical University, Dr. Zhang is a recipient of the "Innovation and Pioneering" Award in Cancer Epidemiology from Jiangsu Province, and the "100 Talent Plan" Award from Shanxi Province, China. A highly respected scholar working at the intersection of Genetics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Dr. Zhang has established a strong track record of outstanding research centered on thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and the fetal origins of disease. Dr. Zhang has more than 170 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals in her field, including American Journal of Epidemiology; Lancet Oncology; Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Blood; Nature Genetics; Thyroid; PloS Medicine; Environmental International, and so on.

Dr. Zhang has conducted workshops in China with approximately 500 participants under Fogarty Grant training programs, and has mentored a number of trainees. In addition, she has supervised more than 40 visiting scholars from major Chinese collaborating universities and research hospitals, leading to publications in peer reviewed journals, and strengthened scientific research capacity in environmental and cancer epidemiology of collaborating institutions. Dr. Zhang has served as a regular member of two study sections at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Cancer Society, as well as an ad hoc member on several special emphasis panels at the NIH. She is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention and the General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Global Health.

CULTURE AND “CENSORSHIP” IN CHINA: The Case of the Opera Dr. Sun Yat-sen
In 2011, the much-anticipated world premiere of the opera Dr. Sun Yat-sen was cancelled at short notice by Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts （国家大剧院）. Nick Frisch, who covered the ensuing controversy for The New York Times, will explain the conflicting claims of censorship surrounding Dr. Sun Yat-sen's cancellation in Beijing, premiere in Hong Kong and later success in the United States. The discussion examine conflicting notions of “censorship” at the intersection of art, history, politics, and speech in modern China.

NICK FRISCH
Nick Frisch is a PhD student in East Asian studies at Yale, and Resident Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project. Before graduate school he worked as a reporter, policy researcher, and culture critic in Greater China, and was a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Centre. From 1994-1998, he was a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, singing additional solo roles at Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Nick's writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and China Quarterly. He was recently named a 2015-2016 Mellon Fellow for digital humanities in Yale's Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.